On being ‘locked in’.

On Twitter tonight there was a discussion of whether or not an athlete performing really well for a stretch was something that could be contributed to a guy actually feeling hot.

ESPN’s Keith Law is one of my favorite guys to follow. He gives you sports analysis from a smart, objective take. Tonight, predictably, he came down on the side that hot streaks were a result of normal randomness, citing a lack of evidence to the contrary. MLB pitcher Brandon McCarthy, another really smart guy, came down on the other side. “Feeling hot” or “Locked in” is a legitimate thing that comes and goes and it absolutely affects on the field performance.

The two (and a lot of others) got into a back and forth for a couple hours and looking at it from the outside it felt like mommy and daddy fighting. I want them to agree on everything all the time, but of course that isn’t going to happen. But I thought it was fascinating to watch, the analyst going strick science, the athlete saying he’s wrong but without any kind of irrefutable evidence.

Here’s my own take: being hot exists. Being “dialed in” is absolutely a thing. I don’t know how or why it happens, but there are times where you just feel like failing is impossible. If you’re an athlete and you’ve had a stretch or even just a game where you had the feeling, you’re probably nodding along. I still remember the few occasions it happened to me like they were yesterday. It’s bittersweet; you beat yourself up wondering why you can’t feel like that all time.

Conversely, I know exactly what it feels like to go cold. Baseball was my sport and pitching was what I was best at. But I know the terror of being on the mound and having absolutely no idea where the ball is going to go when you release it. I remember a specific game when my catcher popped out for a mound visit and I had to tell him I basically forgot how to pitch. Right there, that game I went from being an all-conference guy to someone who just picked up a baseball for the first time.